Israel airstrike bombs major water line, sewage station and water wells in Gaza

Enough. It’s Time for a Boycott of Israel
Naomi Klein in the Guardian

ANC calls Israeli ambassador to leave the country

“We came and turned the native Arabs into tragic refugees. And still we dare to slander and malign them, to besmirch their name. Instead of being deeply ashamed of what we did and trying to undo some of the evil we committed … we justify our terrible acts and even attempt to glorify them.”
— Nathan Chofshi; Russian Jewish writer who migrated to Palestine in 1908. He witnessed the expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs and wrote critically about it as late as 1959.

LIMA, Peru and JERUSALEM — Latin American nations are expressing their revulsion at the bloodshed in Gaza — and squarely pinning the blame on Israel. Chile, Peru and El Salvador said this week they are recalling their ambassadors from Israel for consultation. That was after Ecuador and Brazil did the same last week. Wednesday, Bolivian President Evo Morales declared Israel a “terrorist state.”

Get with it Francesco 49! This is becoming more and more a massacre of innocents every day. Your arguements do not hold up! Latin American countries are not buying it- for the most part, and I don’t consider them dummies. It’s the media that’s selling the Israeli point of view. And they’ve been had by the almighty dollar! To hell with the truth!

The decision of the Latin American countries to recall their ambassadors in Tel Aviv is a “deep disappointment”, says Israel.

El Salvador on Wednesday became the fifth Latin American country to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in protest at Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru have already recalled their ambassadors.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the move encourages Hamas; “this decision encourages Hamas which has been recognized as a terrorist organization by several countries. The countries standing against terror must act responsibly and should not reward them. While Hamas has been responsible for hindering a ceasfire, El Salvador, Peru and Chile were expected to support international attitude for peace and demilitarization of Gaza”, the statement said.

Earlier Israel criticized Brazil over its decision to recall its ambassador in protest at Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

Brazil was one of 29 countries in the UN Human Rights Council that voted last Wednesday to investigate Israel over its military offensive in Gaza.

During a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 17, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said her country was “profoundly concerned by the dramatic events” in Gaza.

The Palestinian death toll from a devastating Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip rose to 1283, according to a Gaza Health Ministry spokesman.

According to the spokesman, at least 7170 Palestinians have also been injured in the ongoing Israeli attacks since July 7.

(I rather like this article! Says a lot about why Harper backs Israel. Also- why Columbia is one of the few countries to support Israel.)

Selling military equipment and the contracts have much to do with this cosy relationship with Ben and Stephen.)

Rather than “Jewish votes” Harper’s “Israel no matter what” policy has more to do with mobilizing his rightwing, evangelical base on an issue (unlike abortion) that the government believes has limited electoral downside. While a cross section of Protestants has long supported Zionism, backing is particularly strong among evangelicals who believe Jews need to “return” to the Middle East to hasten the second coming of Jesus and the Apocalypse.

A year ago B’nai Brith’s Jewish Tribune reported on a Conservative MP’s speech to a major Christian Zionist event in Toronto. “Jeff Watson, Conservative MP for Essex, delivered greetings from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The creation of the state of Israel fulfills God’s promise in Deuteronomy to gather the Jewish people from all corners of the world, he said.”

About 10 per cent of Canadians identify themselves as evangelicals (including a number of cabinet ministers). The president of the rightwing Canadian Centre for Policy Studies, Joseph Ben-Ami, explains, “The Jewish community in Canada is 380,000 strong; the evangelical community is 3.5 million. The real support base for Israel is Christians.”

In addition to mobilizing some evangelicals and Jews, Harper’s affinity for Israel is also motivated by that country’s militarism. Conservative leaders are impressed by the large political, cultural and economic role Israel’s military plays in the country’s affairs. In recent years Canada-Israel military ties have grown rapidly with both countries top generals and defence ministers visiting each other’s countries. At the same time there has been an increase in weapons sharing and relations between arms manufacturers in the two countries have grown considerably. (For details see Kole Kilibarda’s Canadian and Israeli Defense —Industrial and Homeland Security Ties: An Analysis).

Historically, Canadian support for Israel has largely mirrored different governments’ relations to the U.S. Empire. The federal governments most enthralled to Washington, Mulroney and Harper for instance, have been Israel’s biggest cheerleaders. Canadian policy towards the Middle East has generally been designed to enable U.S. imperial designs on a strategic part of the planet. And Ottawa’s longstanding support for Israel has been based on the idea that it is a valuable Western military outpost.

External Affairs Minister Lester Pearson, a staunch supporter of Israel and leading foreign policy decision-maker for decades, explained this thinking in a 1952 memo to cabinet: “With the whole Arab world in a state of internal unrest and in the grip of mounting anti-western hysteria, Israel is beginning to emerge as the only stable element in the whole Middle East area.” Pearson went on to explain how “Israel may assume an important role in Western defence as the southern pivot of current plans for the defence” of the eastern Mediterranean.

Politically, culturally and economically dependent on North America and Europe, Israel is a dependable Western imperial outpost in the heart of the (oil-producing) Middle East.

Due to its Jewish/’White’ supremacist character Israeli society is overwhelmingly in opposition to its neighbours, heightening its geopolitical reliability. In all other U.S.-backed Middle Eastern countries, for instance, the population wants their government to have less to do with Washington while Israelis want closer ties.

Recent developments in Colombia may help illustrate this point. For most of the past decade Colombian President Alvaro Uribe acted as a U.S.-backed bulwark against the rising tide of support for a left-leaning Latin American integration that was sweeping South America. But, recent events suggest this dynamic may be coming to an end with Uribe’s successor, Juan Manuel Santos. Colombians simply have too much in common with their neighbours (be it language, history, culture) so the new government has begun to reorient the country’s regional policy against Washington’s wishes. Colombians “South American character” makes them unreliable long-term allies.

In contrast Israeli’s European and North American colonial character is seen to make them reliable.

The power of empire has tilted Ottawa towards Israel and until there is a significant source of power in Canada (or internationally) backing the Palestinians it is likely to stay that way. Social justice, humanism and morality rarely motivate Canadian foreign policy. Instead, power is what drives foreign affairs and Palestinians have never had much of it.

Long under Ottoman rule, then British control after World War I, the Palestinians were an oppressed and relatively powerless people. Palestinians also had the misfortune of living on land claimed by a predominantly European political movement: Zionism.

Historically, Ottawa has sided with colonial powers and opposed national liberation struggles. Canada opposed calls for the withdrawal of Dutch troops from Indonesia in the late 1940s. For decades Canada supported British colonialism in Africa while throughout the late 1950s it sided with France against the Algerian liberation movement. Into the 1970s, Ottawa backed Portugal as it waged a colonial war against the people of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. It took decades of struggle within Canada — and a shift in the international climate — for Ottawa to withdraw its backing for the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Considering this history, it’s not surprising that Ottawa opposes the Palestinian national liberation struggle. To focus on the Jewish lobby is to downplay Canada’s broader pro-colonial, pro-empire foreign policy. It is a mistake to view Ottawa’s support for Israel in isolation. That support should not be divorced from a wider foreign-policy discussion. The Palestinian solidarity movement needs to make its critique of Canadian foreign-policy more explicit.

We should “de-ethnicize” the conflict. This is not an Arab or Jewish issue but rather one of global importance about basic human dignity.